Horace to the Extreme
by 0rcsapo
Summary: A first person perspective of Horace- a heavy hopolite under Odysseus at Troy, and who followed him on his travels to Ithaca.


Call me Ishmael. Wait, on second thought, don't call me Ishmael, that's not my name. My name is Horace. I was with Odysseus at Troy. We fought together, or more precisely, He gave me orders on the battlefield and I carried them out. Everyone tells me that Odysseus was the hero of Troy and how great he was and how clever and blah, blah, blah. Alright, I'm nothing special, I'm just a soldier under his command, and don't get me wrong, I like the guy, but HE didn't do most of the fighting, I did. Me and all of my buddies. A good number of them are dead but Odysseus gets the credit for the victory. He commanded. Guess how many Trojans he killed? 17. That's right, 17. How many did I kill? I killed 74. I spent 10 years in a warzone and killed 74 dirty Trojans and Mr. Odysseus gets all the credit. Horse vomit, I swear.

Well, that's my little rant and to be honest, I really like the guy. I'm not dead today because of him. (And my superior skills in combat, thank you.) But I have got to say, working with this guy is a SERIOUS health hazard, I mean really, you would not believe the stuff we get into. I've seen my fair share in the Army, but none of that prepared me for what I was to see with Odysseus. If you ever get the chance to quest with him, politely decline. He's not a bad guy, it's just that trouble seems to find him wherever he goes.

Ok, I'll start AFTER the Trojan War. Trojan horse, we kill people, party time, blah, blah, blah, whatever. So after we finish this big ordeal, it's time to go home, and I'm pumped. 10 years of fighting, dying, and bleeding and I am more ready than ever to go home. I am, by the way, a native of Athens. I was born and raised a city boy in Athens until I was old enough to join the Army. Anyway, done killing, ready to go home. So I hop on to the ship, unload my armor, and get ready to enjoy the voyage home. I go to sleep, but them I'm awakened with the whole crew up and moving around like we're at war. I figure we're being attacked by another ship, so I grab my weapon and armor and run up to the top deck expecting to see another fleet full of pirates, but I don't. I just see all the sailors fighting with the ropes and sails, screaming something about wind. I don't know, but I help out the first sailor I see and do whatever he does in hopes that maybe if two people work on whatever he's doing, we'll do it faster.

We fight for a long time, I don't remember how long, though. I was so exhausted I could barely move. By the time we finished fighting the winds, land was in sight. Me being a soldier, I thought, "That must be Greece, we must be home!" Unfortunately, having thought this out loud, a sailor quickly laughed and said, "No buddy, we're way off course, that's Ismarus. Good thing you joined the Army, grunt." " You're right, I'm much better at killing people than driving a boat. Especially people that piss me off!" That shut him up pretty fast. Anyway, we got closer and docked. We were all very tired and very hungry. So when we got off, the first thing I wanted was something to eat. Which wasn't hard to get, considering the Cicones didn't really fight us. We showed up and the chain of command went to shambles. I don't remember what my commander told me to do, but I and the rest of my buds ransacked the place. We went from store to store taking what we wanted and trashing the place afterwards. In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have done that, but come on, we're an army that just got finished fighting a war and ransacking the city of Troy and you expect us NOT to ransack this place? I mean let's be serious here for a minute, we're going to break stuff. But again, that was kind of a bad idea. Eventually, the Cicones decided that they had enough. They sent an armed force after us and they fought hard, harder than we had anticipated. I was shocked that these people that were pushovers to let us come and sack their city wouldn't fight, but they did. We fought all the way back to our ships until we could leave. We sustained a number of casualties. On average, we lost about 6 per ship. Again, in hindsight, we probably shouldn't have gotten carried away with that city.

Ok, so this next part is kind of hazy. We left the city and then sailed into this massive storm that only the gods could have sent. And no, it was not on purpose, though it wouldn't surprise me, some of those navy guys are dumber than rocks, I'm surprised they float. Anyway, this storm goes on for 9 days until we get to some other island. This time, the sailors all got really weird because they didn't know where we were. I didn't really care at the time. Ok, so this is the hazy part. I remember getting off the ship with more order this time. We were a professional force. My officer went to go speak to Odysseus and came back with some "gifts" the locals wanted to give us. The next thing I remember, I'm back on the boat and we're at sea. Apparently, the locals gave us this lotus fruit stuff or whatever and when we ate it, we all went silly and drunk with the stuff. None of us wanted to go home, we just wanted to stay and eat the crazy lotus stuff. But Odysseus wanted all of us to be fed first, so he didn't plan to eat any until we had all been fed, but then he noticed how loopy we all were. We wouldn't move, so he had to drag each and every one of us back to the ships. I was one of the last to get picked up, that's why I woke up on the sea. I am not a lightweight, by the way! I can handle my wine just fine, this stuff was just crazy.  
Oh wait there's another island up ahead, I wonder if it's Greece.  
"Hey, Sailor!"  
"What do you want, grunt?"  
"Didn't we just have a chat about why I joined the army? You wanna rethink that last statement?"  
"What is it, soldier?"  
"Do you know what that Island is?"  
"Yeah, that's the land of the Cyclopes."  
"No way! Do Cyclopes live there?"  
"Is there an intelligence requirement for the army or are you just that dumb?"  
What a wiseguy. I'll deal with him, later. If there seriously are things that big on that island, I need to get my gear squared away. I'm going to go sharpen my sword and fix my helmet. My chinstrap has been bugging me since Ismarus. If I'm alive, I'll write more later.

Respectfully,  
CPL HORACE TYRESIUS  
1BN 19th HEAVY INFANTRY  
"HADES' HOPOLITES"


End file.
